Vae Victis
by Ladylaconia
Summary: A spiffy little oneshot featuring an Agent, some Fingermen and our favorite masked madman. Please review.


Five Fingermen strolled down an empty, littered London street, their long black overcoats hanging limply as they surveyed the surrounding area for any evidence of illegal activity.

Braxton Hall glanced up at Westminster Bridge as the sickly yellow moon shone from behind two monstrous cumuli. It was precisely twelve o'clock, midnight. A frail breeze blew, bringing the odors of industry and excess to his pale, flared nostrils. Despite the fact that he was in the company of several armed policemen, he was nervous.

"Here now," he said, his voice a pitched rasp, "I don't hold with mucking about at all hours in the bloody streets. Let's get indoors and soon, shall we?"

Gervais, one of the more sardonic coppers, gave the smaller man a skeptical smirk. "What's this, afraid of the dark, Braxy?"

"It's Agent Hall to you." the little man retorted. "And it's not the dark that bugs me, it's what _lives_ in the dark."

"Aw, bugger off." Gervais snorted. "Them rumors getting to your head, old boy?"

"Rumors?!" Hall practically stopped in mid-step, his eyes wide. "Four fully armed guards with their throats slit wide open! Several legal pieces taken, no trace! All that stuff about Larkhill and the bomb and whatnot..." Hall's face grew momentarily haggard. "You're an ignorant arse if you're not fearful yourself, Richard."

"Someone's found out somethin'. And whoever it is, they're pissed off about it. Real bad." commented Stevens, one of Gervais' more reliable-- and intelligent-- Fingermen.

"I'm here on orders from the Head to find out why those files were taken. I've got a suspicion, and it's not good." Hall moaned, shuffling with his head bent down, as if he was afraid of being spotted by some predator. "Why you've brought me along on this turkey-shoot of a patrol is beyond reason!"

"Creedy thought it'd be best if you came with us instead of arrivin' by motorcar." Gervais said calmly. "Last agent got blown up just as he was steppin' out of the lorry, bless him."

Hall's visage grew paler and he worked his jaw, sweating visibly on his scalp.

"Blown up? _Blown up??? _No one said anything about... I agreed blindly to come and... madness! I want to go back to Bristol now! No one said anything about anyone being bloody blown bloody up!" Hall demanded, his voice rising in pitch as he talked faster.

"Relax. As long as you're with us, you're safe. We're the best." Gervais gave another maddening smirk. "Creedy hand picks us to deliver his special guests."

Hall ceased conversing with them, instead rubbing his hands together and letting out frustrated little sighs as he walked. The lights of London were dim, the speakers that projected the voice of Fate were silent. A lone crow roosted on a street light, preening.

Hall's adrenaline-augmented senses detected a whisper of movement behind the group-- a slight whisper, perhaps the smooth sound of cloth. He looked over his shoulder, glassy eyeballs rolling wildly. Nothing but a few dead leaves, soda cans and the stale night air. And the wind.

He continued walking, not even listening to the conversation, which had turned to the subjects of pole dancers and barroom etiquette. He was sure that they were being followed. He had that tingling sensation in the back of his head, as if some pair of eyes was boring through his skull with a piercing stare. He could imagine some demon swooping down on black wings, ending his life with one sure stroke. Again he glanced behind him. There was nothing but the wind and the dark.

He walked faster, closing his eyes. He could feel his heart beating in his eyelids. He walked a few paces thus, following the sounds of the Fingermen walking and talking. Braxton Hall's afraid of the dark, Braxton Hall's afraid... afraid... of what?

_Of what am I afraid? A man or a demon? A figment of my imagination or a real danger?_

He couldn't answer himself. _Blown up. Throats slit. Larkhill. Secret files. Investigate, run away, want to run away..._

Never had he detested the dark so much as he did now. He opened his eyes and saw that they were headed for an area in the street where the street lights had gone out.

Gervais scowled. "Those will need repairing tomorrow." he muttered, then turned to Hall. He saw Hall's dejected, pallid death mask of a face and guffawed. "Blimey Hall, you look like you seen a ghost!"

Hall sighed, a shaky exhalation that seemed to deflate his mass. "Let's just get moving on, out of the dark, shall we?"

Gervais snorted, muttered something, and followed his fellow men into the shadow. Hall stepped after them, shutting his eyes. _Just a few steps and you'll be out of the shadow, just a few simple steps. About ten feet to go. Just keep walking, don't be afraid of the Bogeyman, don't be afraid of the dark... or what lives in the dark..._

The wind swirled by him, as if some winged thing had just swooped in front of him. He shivered and walked faster. He thought he heard Gervais cough and Stevens made a nauseated sound. Hall's heart beat faster and his mouth went dry. He stopped in mid-step and dared to open his eyes.

Even in the dim shadows, he could discern things laying around him. Bodies. He bent down and dared to look closely at one shadow-obscured face. Gervais...

He looked up and saw a grinning face that seemed carved of porcelain, the head of a black-clad figure wielding a fistful of knives.

Agent Braxton Hall's scream was about to leave his throat when his throat was quickly and efficiently slit from jugular to jugular, and he fell, like his comrades, into a silent and rather awkward heap.

The masked man regarded his victims with an unfathomable expression of grim mirth, for who can read the emotions of a man shrouded by a veneer face?

"Vae Victis." he said, tipped his black hat, and melted back into the darkness.

The crow, which had observed all this with nary a twitch, fluttered down and gazed in Hall's lifeless eyes, then hopped onto his face.

VENI, VIDI, VICI. The End


End file.
